Awakening
by ganonso
Summary: A young mage's awakening to Pandemonium
_Ange plein de bonté, connaissez-vous la haine/Et les pleurs versés dans l'ombre et les larmes de fiel ?/ Quand la vengeance bat son infernal rappel/ Et de toutes nos facultés se fait le capitaine ?/Ange plein de bonté, connaissez-vous la haine ?_

I whisper these words as I walk the deserted streets, without knowing where to go, whether to continue or stop, whether to move or not move. The night could be beautiful but my mind sees only darkness. Black waters flow before my eyes and I struggle but weakly against their siren's song. There's an ache in my heart as each beating becomes painful and I wonder for a moment if I will know my father's fate.

Not that I'll complain anyway. It's not as if I was worth something. My lips smile dryly as the thought. People who know me say I'm intelligent, say I know things on the mind, on magic, on literature, on life even. They are perhaps not mistaken. However, I have no discipline be it in work or in leisure and from that lack stems all my problems. I let things flow away, unable to catch one and hold it, to finish it, unable to hold a resolution or even a schedule. My mind, undisciplined as a monkey go from branch to branch without looking backwards. It tires me sometimes; it tires me worse than the lack of sleep that is my habit.

I have work, unfinished because I flee pain. I have work, unfinished because all I do is patchwork, taking from others and collating, smoothing away differences, breaking down barriers. Still the disparate elements are visible to me. Thus my works disgust me in the hours of the night and I forsake it.

Recently I've taken to spend the last hours of my insomnia in the streets. When I began I said to myself it was a way to exercise my fat flesh. I mean to do that but as I'm unable to work in time, to strain myself to go exercise regularly is a shore I'm loath to do. Part of that is sloth. The greater part of that is sloth but it's not all. Sloth is the reason my works are unfinished and my thoughts are always wandering. Loathing and boredom are the reasons I struggle with my instincts.

My body is not my body. I don't mind that in the literal sense of course. It's just. Others seems to control theirs much better than I do mine. Movements, some of them simple do not happen as I wish they should. Others can feel great joy, great pleasure from their body, I struggle to elicit feelings that are not pain or discomfort from my deadened nerves. Chicken in the egg. Pupa in the chrysalis. Toad in the stone. Take the metaphor you want; god know I have.

There is something endlessly fascinating with insomnia. The manner something so simple as lack of sleep can turn your thoughts so easily. When comes the time comedies, music or games can't cheer me up, when music can't drown the sound of black waters, I rise and clothe myself then go walk through town for the remainder of the night. My eyes still struggling against or for sleep, my limbs slightly aching and my heart crying, always crying. It's artificial I know. I grew accustomed to the nightly whispers I would die alone without accomplishing anything of worth as I accustomed myself to the thoughts of death or my darkest desires.

I walk through the streets in the cold of the night. It's always cold, another gift from the lack of sleep, in that sort of excitation you have when you don't sleep for long and your body secretes adrenaline or something to keep you up. I'm excitable but slow, eagle-eyed but blind. And still I walk the streets without thinking of the path, leaving my feet lead me, waiting for the dawn.

That night something is different. Fog is surrounding me. White mist I know don't happen in my corner of southern France. Am I hallucinating? The streets have grown large enough to let armies pass and cramped enough to make me feel as if the sky weighted upon me. I feel the onset of vertigo, the sheer terror of the heights and the void when you are paralyzed as a rabbit before a serpent.

I hate fear. I hate anger and loathing and it shames me to follow them, to be slave to them as readily as I leave my work unfinished. Yet their songs are so sweet and like I repeat. I have no discipline. Yet I continue even as the mist deepen and I'm blind, without any thoughts of going backwards. If I'm hallucinating I will encounter obstacles soon enough. If I'm transported to Silent Hill, well I'm in a state of mind where dying would not be a huge problem.

The mist clears for a time and I can see the buildings, still indistinct, still forbidding. No alteration visible. A cry resounds in my ears. Pain or joy? I don't know but I see' a small shadow running along the way, passing me with a wave of the hand and turning left.

Well what can I lose? I'm already crazy anyway. I run after the shadows.

I see things in the mist, not monsters but humans. Beggars and walkers, groups of friends happily drunk and solitaries in their meditations. They wear all the clothing of life, tatters, rich fabrics, one has even the frock of a monk. They hold all the items of life, books, cigarettes, keys and money. Some dance with each other, kiss each other, some murder, some eat, some drink and some commit acts I won't repeat.

All of them bear my face whether they are fat or thin, young or old, leering or crying, frowning or chastising. All of them wear my face and when I pass them look at me for a moment with an expression that escapes me.

Diaphanous virtues at their work or in peace, putrid vices at their pleasures. There are not one of those I don't envy. Joy even rough, pleasure even forbidden, if I could sample them… What care I have to struggle even against my basest urges if I'll die alone in the end? What care I have to try to be virtuous if I'm failing every steps of the way? All my tasks are unfinished, all my works undone. I was born with a goal and still failed to fulfill it.

Before me the shadows run always.

Air thickens, faces are more numerous now. Some I recognize for what they are: Envy clad in green, Lust in the shadows, Judgement on my shoulders coiled around my shadow. Others I can't identify as I run pass them. Some I refuse to name and acknowledge for my shame seeing them is too great. A sinner I am and for some of them, even if conceived in thought alone I must be punished.

Why do I struggle even in this dismal state of mind I'm in? Because you can always fall further even when you think you reached the bottom. I consider that the joy I would have of succumbing to the forbidden, even if it's the only thing that'll bring me pleasure, is worse than the scraps I take on the permitted road.

I always wondered. Does that make me evil for I'm perhaps able to find pleasure only in the forbidden? Or because I'm struggling and prefer the grey monotony rather than unchained instincts, does that make me good?

I smile when the shadow stop because I recognize where we arrived: Two wolves of stone howl to the absent moon while a lake deep enough to swallow the world lies at their feet. Inside are monsters and wonders. Inside is the joy of dreaming, inside are the black waters. There is pleasure in self-flagellation and I know, with the certitude of dreamers if I plunge in these waters I would be as the dead. Still I see what I pursued. Another mirage bearing the face of my childhood but never as a child did I have such a leering expression, nor so wide a grin.

"Atonement is inside" he says pointing the pool "but only one can enter. Which one of you will take this chance?"

I look around me and see the crowds of my clones surrounding me, pressing me, some clamoring for their need to purify themselves, other contempt of the mere notion. I fight them all, with fist and nails and teeth, I fight them all without even thinking why. I feel their, my blood enter my mouth and comes a moment, a magical moment where we all have fallen on each other where I see through their eyes, understand what they are and what I am. I smile while telling them, screaming it even.

"None of you are me even if you are part of me. Path not taken. Noble Truths. Base impulses. You are here to serve me, not be the whole of me" And one after the other after the rebuke they fade in the shadows of the pavement.

I laugh when the scene changes, I laugh hysterically without knowing why. For I see the cobblestones and the pool and the statues scratched with names while the crowd have left me colored stones. I laugh because there was not an ounce of originality in my whole mind, not a thought that has not been thought by others and that's the whole point. We are all built from the same elements, dark or light, but their pattern is never exactly the same. Separation is a lie for even in our darkest moments others have thought what we are thinking.

There's no shame in building from borrowed parts as long as the pattern is yours.

There is pain when I take the stones. Pain as I recognize and name every part of myself that counts, vowing to never abandon the struggles. I dispose them on the pool's edge in a symbol I don't know but I recognize as my name. Not just the letters but the rune and symbol of who I am. I'm not surprised to see the mists come again in an instant, nor of the feeling of utter wrongness that grips all my limbs.

I'm too taken by the Sight of the world to care.


End file.
